


You Can't Go Wrong With Cool Fish

by heliantheae



Series: Blue [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aquariums, F/M, Fluff, Forgotten Anniversary, Humor, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, POV Sam Wilson, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15430437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliantheae/pseuds/heliantheae
Summary: “If it’s not a national emergency I’m hanging up on you,” Sam informs her. “I saw you literally two days ago.”“It’s an emergency involving a national icon?” she tries.Sam stares up at his ceiling for a moment, wondering what he’d done in a past life to deserve this. “What could Steve possibly have done already at seven o’clock in the morning on a Thursday?”“What makes you think it’s Steve?"(It's always Steve.)Can be read as a stand-alone.





	You Can't Go Wrong With Cool Fish

Sharon extracts herself from under Sam’s arm at some horribly early hour, kisses his forehead while he mutters sleepily, and heads to work. Sam sleeps for several more hours after that, because he’s not the CIA’s latest darling and has a nice nine-to-five job which means he’s allowed to sleep until the birds outside his window are at least sort of awake. 

His phone rings two minutes before his alarm is set to go off, and he groans. Sam is of the opinion that waking up right before his alarm goes off is the worst possible case scenario, because it means he doesn’t have the satisfaction of going back to bed and also he’s being robbed of precious sleep. He briefly contemplates not answering the phone, remembers that he’s technically a superhero, and picks up. “Wilson,” he says muzzily.

“Hey, Sam. Sorry if I woke you up,” Natasha’s voice says, completely unrepentant. 

He sighs. “Hey, Nat. What’s up?”

“I can’t call to catch up with a friend?” she asks.

“If it’s not a national emergency I’m hanging up on you,” Sam informs her. “I saw you literally two days ago.”

“It’s an emergency involving a national icon?” she tries.

Sam stares up at his ceiling for a moment, wondering what he’d done in a past life to deserve this. “What could Steve possibly have done already at seven o’clock in the morning on a Thursday?”

“What makes you think it’s Steve?” Natasha wants to know. “It could be Bucky. Or like, I don't know. A bald eagle or something.”

“It’s always Steve. Bucky has…” Sam trails off, looking for the words to describe why Bucky is the less stressful of the two supersoldiers.

“Common sense?” Natasha offers. “A sense of self-preservation. Manners. More settings than just medically-induced coma and ready to fight?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “He’s got all of that. I love that man.”

Natasha makes a noncommittal noise. “I’d like him a lot better if he could keep Steve from being Steve all of the time.”

“What did he do?” Sam repeats, though if she has time to banter it means no one important is actively bleeding out and this probably could have waited until he was actually awake. “He didn’t punch another reporter, did he?”

“No,” Natasha assures him. “I think after last time everyone decided maybe they had better lecture him about ruining the sanctity of marriage and corrupting today’s youth over Twitter instead of in person.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Sam says. “Did you really call me just to make me guess whatever Steve fucked up this time though?”

“You’re so impatient,” Natasha scolds. “You’ll love this though. He forgot his and Bucky’s anniversary.” 

“Sucker,” Sam snorts, and then, “Wait. Why are you calling me about it?”

“Because Bucky remembered,” she says, far too gleefully for this early in the morning. “So Steve feels like the world’s biggest asshole and gave me sad Captain America eyes over FaceTime and I signed us up to help him.”

“I refuse for a second to believe that sad Captain America eyes work on you,” Sam tells her flatly. “This is purely for your own entertainment.”

“I would never laugh at the pain of my friends,” she says. “Out loud, anyway. Are you in?”

“Of course I’m in,” Sam grumbles. “What am I doing?”

“You’ve got the easy part, since you’ve got work today,” she informs him. “Can you make dinner reservations somewhere for them? And maybe plan a cutesy date activity they’d never do for themselves.”

“I can do that,” Sam agrees. “What are you up to?”

“I’m making a definitely legal exchange with an arms dealer to acquire a sniper rifle Bucky has been drooling over. I have Clint collecting the materials Steve is going to use to make a kickass anniversary gift while Bucky is at therapy this afternoon,” Natasha rattles off. “Speaking of the arms deal, I have to get going.”

“Good luck with that,” he tells her.

She blows a raspberry into the phone and hangs up.

\----------

Sam makes it to work and spends every moment he’s not with a patient searching the entirety of New York City for a date night activity appropriate for men who are simultaneously thirty and a hundred years old. Dinner had been easy enough to plan, given both Steve and Bucky have an intense love of terrible hipster restaurants. There were plenty of those in Brooklyn, and Sam had selected a vegan diner that boasted of locally grown, sustainably farmed produce and a firm ban on single-use plastic products. Bucky was enamored with meat substitutes for some odd reason, and Steve’s latest campaign was against plastic bags so Sam was pretty sure they’d love it. 

“Hot date?” his eleven o’clock appointment says when he’s not quick enough to close a Cosmo article listing date ideas.

“I wish,” Sam tells her. “A buddy of mine forgot his anniversary and I’m helping him out.”

“The aquarium,” she suggests. “You can’t go wrong with cool fish.”

“Yeah?” Sam asks. 

“You mentioned checking out aquarium live streams online to help me calm down because of the eye movement whatever,” she says. “I’ve gotten pretty invested in the piranhas at the Georgia Aquarium.”

“That’s great,” Sam says, making a note. “Has it been helping?”

\----------

He buys two tickets for the New York Aquarium as soon as she’s gone and sends them and the restaurant reservation information to Natasha, who responds with the squirt gun emoji and a smiley face. Presumably that’s a good thing, so Sam relaxes and has a productive lunch with his fellow counselors.

They do mindful origami in his support group that afternoon, during which time the literal hundreds of practice swans littering his apartment finally pay off. His vets love it. The highlight of the hour is when one of them holds up a horrible mangled crumple of paper that might have been a bird at one point and says, “Me internally.”

“Me externally,” one of the others corrects, gesturing at his shrapnel scars. 

General hilarity ensues, and Sam is still chuckling to himself when the group ends at five and he checks his phone. He smiles even more widely when he sees Steve’s thank you text, accompanied by a picture of Bucky suspiciously allowing an epaulette shark to investigate his flesh hand in one of those interactive tanks. 

There’s a text from Sharon saying she’ll be home for dinner tonight too. It’s been a really good day, he decides, and sends a text asking her how she feels about ordering Indian takeout and binging _Call the Midwife_.


End file.
